


(Not) Dealing

by mcmachine



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Postpartum Depression, parenting, supportive coworkers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 03:22:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13355448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcmachine/pseuds/mcmachine
Summary: After such a traumatic birth with Harriet, April struggled with something that she was unwilling to admit to herself or those who cared about her.





	(Not) Dealing

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on Tumblr, with minor edits made here. Not Japril centric though vague mentions of. Basically, something that we should have seen if the writers had actually bothered to put a little thought into giving April a valuable and realistic storyline.

She’d noticed the first time he took the baby.

She’d gone home from the hospital with the baby for three days. Taking care of it had felt robotic, formulaic. Breastfeed it, burp it, bounce it as best her healing injury allowed, place it down for a few hours. When it cries, get up and repeat the process again. At first, she hadn’t thought too much about it. April was still exhausted from giving birth, body still going through its healing processes. A lot of it could have been passed off as normal. 

But then he took the baby, their trade-off for the week. The first trade-off. Everyone would have expected her to break down and cry, for all of the maternal hormones in her system to take over and keep her from controlling herself when it came to her reaction. 

Instead, April woke up that morning, and she was fine.

She got up, took a shower, and let her hair dry naturally. Made herself a cup of coffee and flipped on the news as she munched on a banana before changing out of her pajamas and into a pair of sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt, baby weight leaving her in the same clothes as her pregnancy. It’s only when she looks at herself in the mirror, sees her large bosom and the extra weight, that she remembers the missing piece of the puzzle. Oh.

The next mornings like that, and when Jackson came over to drop off their child, he seemed more emotional than she’d seen him in months – looking at their creation with such a sense of adoration that was unrivaled by anything else, torn to hand him back over the woman who birthed him, without the knowledge of what was happening in her brain.

April repeated her formula. Feed, burp, put down. Pick up when it cries.

But there’s no adoring coos leaving her lips, no soft smiles filled with a mother’s love. Instead, there’s just tired eyes and a blank face, as if she was entirely drained of emotions. She winced at the pain of breastfeeding and didn’t think of all the joys the child was to bring into her future life. When Jackson comes to pick it up, she’s as relieved as he is.

It’s been a month, and she’s assumed that no one’s noticed. The baby is asleep for the moment in its crib, and she’s stretched out on the couch. The knock on the door draws her attention and she’s hopeful as she gets up, praying it’s Jackson begging to have another day or a few more hours with the child. Instead, when she pulls open the door to the apartment, she’s greeted by blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Arizona.

“Hey. Didn’t realize you were coming over.” April greets with an awkward smile.

“Hey! No, it’s fine – don’t worry about it, really. I had the day off and came over to see my beautiful little god baby. Where is she? I’m surprised you’re able to put Harriet down. All Jackson ever talks about now is how cute she is. Who’d have known he’d been so baby crazy this entire time? Apparently, Warren’s been getting flooded with hourly updates.” There’s a light chuckle from Arizona’s lips as she talks lightly about April’s ex-husband, hoping she’ll be content with the topic of conversation with the mutual interest of their child.

“Oh. Yeah, I just put her down.” It’s a short answer, lips pursed together tightly as she steps out of the way to let the other woman inside of her apartment, shutting and locking it after.

“Is everything okay? You seem tired.” The question is careful, obviously not wanting to offend the redhead. She’s dealt with new mothers in the worst of situations, after all, and this one was her best friend with a happy baby. In a perfect world, this should’ve been easy for her.

“Yeah, just tired.” April attempts to lie, wetting her lips and crossing her arms, sinking back down into the cushions of her sofa.

“April, if there’s something going on, you know that you–”

“I’m fine, Arizona.”

The words are followed by a tense pause from April’s shortness. It’s not that Arizona doesn’t know what to say, but she knows that April certainly doesn’t want to hear it, and she’s walking the line between her place as a friend and her place as a doctor. It’s a difficult line to walk, it was why she’d backed out of it before the baby was born. But she’d seemed to sink into the role once again.

“I’m sorry, I’m…” April begins to apologize, a heavy sigh leaving her lips. She cracks without any more prompting from Arizona. “I just think there’s something wrong with me.”

“April, what’re you talking about?” Plucked eyebrows knit together as Arizona moves to sit down next to the redhead, placing a concerned hand on her knee.

“I don’t know.” She pauses, wetting her lips again. “I thought that I’d be so happy to finally have the baby here. When I held Samuel in my arms the first time, it was… even though it was the saddest moment of my life, it was the happiest, too. I thought this time I’d just feel the joy. But every time I look at her, I just… I don’t feel anything. It’s like I’m an alien.” The description feels like inadequate, but there’s a vulnerability in her eyes and in her words when she looks at the blonde woman.

Of course, Arizona was no idiot. She’d seen postpartum depression many times before, even postpartum psychosis when they’d lost it and their child had ended up in her OR. But out of everyone that she’d known, she would’ve never expected April Kepner to be plagued by such a disease.

Wrong of her to think that, perhaps, but assumptions came everywhere. April would have been the perfect mom. Still would and could be. She just needed help.

“April, honey… I can’t imagine how difficult this must be. But there are people who can help you with this, you have so many options. You don’t have to wallow inside of this apartment and feel terrible about it. Why don’t we call Jackson and see if he can take the little nugget for the day, and I’ll drive you up to the hospital to get some help?”

The question spurs a fight. April yells at Arizona, yells enough that it wakes up the baby and it starts screaming. Arizona goes to pick up the baby, and April stops her and starts screaming at her again, names and old fights dragged back up, until she’s said enough that by the time she’s forced Arizona out of her apartment, the blonde has tears brimming her eyes.

"Don't take it personally. It's not her." Arizona has to remind herself. It doesn't take long for her to start talking to Jackson.

A few more days pass. The baby cries and April let it. The next door neighbors each check in on her to see if everything’s alright and she offered them short answers. One of them talks to Jackson before he intercepts. The fight that occurs between Jackson and April is worse than the prior one between Arizona and April, and somewhere in the yelling, she tells him to take the baby for as long as he wants it, because she doesn’t. The statement shakes Jackson to his core, and he knows that it’s not April in there anymore. He leaves with their child and is quick to get reinforcements with Hunt and Arizona.

When Hunt tries talking to her, he’s not even let in the apartment before she slams the door.

However, after a week, April comes up to the hospital. She’s not due back at work just yet, and even if she had been, anyone who knew would’ve put a stop to it. Instead, she finds Arizona as she’s coming out of a surgery. There’s a long, tense stare between the two of them as they both recall the nasty things that April had said in their fight. But the statement that she blurts out is enough to put a band-aid on it for the moment being.

“I need help.”


End file.
